CHICAGO — U.S. Postal Inspectors have arrested a man for possessing a mail carrier’s master key and stealing letters from a mailbox on the Northwest Side. Chicago police helped postal inspectors detain Donald Hill, 35, in the 6900 block of West Belmont around 5:40 a.m. last Thursday, March 20, according to a CPD report.
Hill is charged with taking letters from a U.S. Postal Service drop box at 6900 West Belmont twice before being arrested. The report said that investigators took him into custody upon seeing him placing a piece of mail into the same mailbox Thursday morning.
Hill walked away when a postal inspector approached him and even crashed his car while trying to reverse out of a nearby parking space, according to the report.
Investigators allegedly found a mail carrier’s master key, also known as an “arrow key,” in his possession. Arrow keys allow postal workers to open blue mailboxes used by the public, as well as mail relay boxes and most apartment buildings and banks of mailboxes in residential building mailrooms.
Prosecutors charged Hill with possession of burglary tools, two counts of theft of lost or mislaid property, and minor driving violations.
Mail thieves are front-line foot soldiers in much larger, organized criminal operations that profit by exploiting the contents of envelopes through identity theft and check cashing schemes.
The operations are also why so many Chicago-area mail carriers have been robbed of their master keys in recent years.
